Friday, October 25, 2013

Day 25 of 31: Drop Dead Vince Updated With Page 29 of Chapter One!


Hey cats and kittens! Hard to believe there's less than a week to go for Halloween. I hope everyone's ready for the big night this year! 

I'd like to apologize for the last few updates days. I finally got the chance to finish the next update for Drop Dead Vince! You can read it on Smack Jeeves and on Tapastic. The next update will be a Double Update with the last two pages of chapter one, and the goal is to hopefully have them both uploaded on Smack Jeeves around Halloween. For Tapastic it'll be online November 1st, which happens to fall on the Day of the Dead!

Thank you everyone for being so patient and for supporting Drop Dead Vince. Take care and stay spooky!

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Day 22 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook - the First Promo Pinup



Hey cats and kittens! Hard to believe there's only 9 days to Halloween! I hope everyone's plans for the big night are going swimmingly. While there's going to be an entry dedicated to early concept art and sketches for Drop Dead Vince sometime this week, tonight is dedicated to Vince's very first promo pinup! 

The top left was some sketches I scratched out for ideas. At the time I really liked the bottom two but eventually I decided to go with the bottom left. I then sketched out a larger and more fleshed out version of it, went over the lines with PaintTool SAI and worked some magic in Photoshop. This was pretty exciting for me since it was my first "official" illustration with Vince and Betty together and I really enjoyed how it turned out. It was the start of a pretty crazy ride and even after two and a half years I'm thankful that it's still going, even despite the bumps in the road. 

Thank you everyone for your support! Take care and stay spooky! 

Monday, October 21, 2013

Day 21 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook Sketchdump Coming Soon!


Hey cats and kittens! How is everyone doing? I hope you're all doing well and getting your Halloween plans taken care of since the clock is winding down.

It's another short entry I'm afraid but I have some news for you: one, I'll be working again soon so that will affect my blog updates depending on my work schedule. And two, there's going to be a BIG entry of sketches and concept art for Drop Dead Vince very soon! I'll be gathering my sketchbooks and scanning them this week so stay tuned!

Thank you everyone for being so patient and for your support. Take care and stay spooky!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Day 20 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook - Designing the Logo




Hey cats and kittens! I know it's been a few days and I'd like to apologize for being inactive over the past few days, I've been working on the last few pages for Vince's first chapter and whenever I suddenly remember I had to update the production blog I look at the clock on my computer and it's midnight. Oops. But I promise that I'll make it up to everyone, in fact I'm going to be scanning some material from my sketchbooks to upload for the blog for you to take a gander at. This is the first batch: Designing the Drop Dead Vince logo! 

I do freelance graphic design work and I can tell you that designing a good logo takes a lot of thought even before you put it to paper; although sometimes little things like the doodle I did in the top left of the scans above can inspire a big design or concept. The text was a challenge since while I am experience in graphic design I'm not quite experienced in typography (designing text and typefaces/fonts), but I think it turned out pretty well despite my inexperience. Originally when I was setting up the tombstone I thought of using the broken heart design, but I liked the pompadour skull the best since it represented the main character Vince the best and was much more iconic. I tinted the sketch red in Photoshop and printed it out to go over with multiliner ink and brush pens (the grass was done with a brush pen) and then rescanned it to touch up and color in Photoshop again. And the last image is the end result of the logo!

Thank you every one for your support and for being so patient with me. I hope you're having a great Halloween season and have your plans for the 31st underway, there's only 11 days left until the big night! Take care everyone, and stay spooky!

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Day 15 of 31: Drop Dead Sketchbook - Brush Pen Betty Doodles


Hey cats and kittens! I hope everyone's been well and having a good week so far. I know a while back I promised that you would be able to see some special sketches and doodles for Drop Dead vince, but now the wait is over! This is Drop Dead Sketchbook, where I pull out a few sketches of concepts, page thumbnails, or any doodles that might stir some interest.

This here was an experiment around the time I was first starting out the comic, trying to figure out if I wanted to do the comic traditionally with ink or digitally. Unfortunately I still need some practice with brush pens and brush inking and eventually I decided to draw the pages digitally. But these doodles of Betty were so cute I colored them in Photoshop and added the halftones to it (I think this was around the same time I was trying to figure out her color scheme as well).

Expect more artwork and sketchbook goodies very soon! Take care and stay spooky!

Monday, October 14, 2013

Day 13 of 31: Sneak Peak of Page 30 and 31 Chapter One of Drop Dead Vince!


Hey cats and kittens! I'd like to apologize for the REALLY late entry tonight, I've had to do a few things around the house and was working on the next Vince page. And speaking of, check this out: Exclusive previews of two frames from the last two pages for the first chapter of Drop Dead Vince!

As for which page each frame is from and what's going on I can't say for the moment. But you'll see soon enough. You can say that you have gotten a peek at the last two pages before anyone else! As for page 29 it's off to a bit of a slow start this week but hopefully I'll be able to get back into the groove of things soon.

Thank you so much for your support since the countdown and Betty and Vince Month started! Take care and say spooky!

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Day 13 of 31: Progress on the 2013 Drop Dead Vince Special Edition Halloween Print


Hey cats and kittens! Tomorrow is the start of a new week and I hope everyone is having a great October so far. Thankfully I was able to get that project I was working on finished (for the moment) and get back to working on some Vince projects!

Here's another preview for the 2013 Drop Dead Vince Special Edition print, which is finally getting some lines! When it'll be finished I can't say, since I'm also working on the last few pages of the comic, but I'll definitely keep you informed on the status of both, as well as any other surprises you might see in the Drop Dead Shop. So sit tight!

Thank you so much for your support! Take care and stay spooky!